The Minister for Justice has said he will bring legislation providing for a press council to the Government before the end of the year, as part of a proposed reform of the law of defamation.
Mr McDowell, who was speaking at a weekend conference on privacy law organised by the Law Society, said he would be bringing a "balanced set of proposals" to Government on this issue, which had been promised in the Programme for Government. They would include a press council that came about via an independent process, and not by Government appointment, and it would have statutory recognition.
Mr McDowell said that legislating was made more urgent by a recent judgment in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which found that Princess Caroline of Monaco was entitled to have certain private aspects of her life protected.
In Ireland, apart from the Constitution and certain court rulings, we had no law on privacy. "So a warning light is above the Minister's head at the moment.
"Either judges or the legislature have to address this issue. Whatever views we may have had in the past, we are now in the red zone in relation to our failure to protect privacy," he said
It was necessary to be circumspect about the kind of law that was introduced. There was a danger that a privacy law could become "a shield behind which malefactors could hide". The proposed press council would have some powers, and would offer complainants redress other than litigation. It would represent the media, journalists and owners, and the public interest. It would have to conform to criteria set out in an Act, and would be able to publish its findings.
The media that subscribed to it would be able to enjoy the right to publish and comment on public affairs by submitting to the press council's requirements concerning retraction and correction. When they were wrong they could avail of a defence of public interest.
The Irish media fell far short of the standards that existed in other countries, he said. "The entire Independent group does not even have a corrections column. The Irish Times has a little thing like a lost-and-found column, with corrections written in the most telegraphic terms."
He said the chief executive of the Equality Authority, Mr Niall Crowley, had said a press council would be an instrument for bringing forward the equality agenda. "If I thought for a minute it would have that function, I would bring the whole file to the shredder," he said.
Mr Michael Kealey, a partner in William Fry Solicitors, said the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg had got it wrong over Princess Caroline. "Matters of extreme privacy for most of us are central to the existence and viability of a monarchy, reproductive functions being the most obvious example. It is well nigh impossible, save in particularly obvious cases, for the media to draw distinctions between public behaviour in a public place and private behaviour in a public place. Yet that is what the Court insists they must do." He said that the practical effects of such decisions are significant. In France it led to a situation where photographers at an anti-war demonstration could only photograph the demonstrators from the waist down, as it was illegal to identify participants without their individual consent.